As for Artie’s addiction to detective stories. “Well, there are a whole lot of us in the same fix. I remember crawling under the bed to read Nick Carter. And when I was a student at Yale I paid more attention to Raffles than I did to real property. I think that is the experience of most normal, healthy-minded young people.
“Now, they claim that the only reason that Artie committed this slight delinquency of murdering little Paulie Kessler was because all his life he craved for thrills.” Snorting, Horn read, “‘He never appeared to crave a thrill or excitement, but was rather quiet in his conduct. After Miss Newsome left, he seemed to be much the same as before, quiet, rather affectionate, extremely polite and respectful.’”
On and on he went, using the report: “‘The patient says that he will tell a lie with no compunction whatever, and that he is completely dishonest.’ Then, on page sixty-six, ‘He said he had failed to mention certain things because he had been advised not to mention them.’”
Horn slammed shut the report. “Here are doctors,” he blazed, “who want to make Your Honour believe that their only interest is in finding out what the truth is. And yet they admit there were major episodes they did not inquire into!”
A, B, C, D! What were they? Even though the defence advised its doctors to inquire no further, the State had inquired further.
The entire defence table had risen. Before he could be silenced, Horn shouted, What of the monkey-gland robbery? What of the handless stranger? What of the two dead South Side students, one pushed into the icy lake, one found in a street, shot!
And in pandemonium, the session ended.
In the afternoon, Horn turned to the motive. “Your Honour, I have shown that this psychological-thrill motive was the bunk. The motive was money.
“The kidnapping was planned for ransom. Page 104, ‘They decided to get a young boy they knew to be of a wealthy family.’ Thrills? Excitement? Money! Page 116, ‘He had no hatred for the boy. Neither he nor his associate would have done it without the money’! Money! And of his share, Artie says, ‘After all, five thousand dollars is five thousand dollars’! Page 118, Your Honour, in the language of Artie Straus, ‘We anticipated especially the money’, and then the doctor adds in parenthesis, ‘Facial expression of interest.’
“On page 122, ‘The plan of kidnapping Willie Weiss was given up because his father was so tight we might not get any money from him.’
“They thought of kidnapping their fathers. But on page 121, they decided it was not practical, that there would be no one to furnish the money.
“They wrote in the ransom letter, ‘As a final word of warning, this is strictly a commercial proposition’! From beginning to end, Your Honour, they tell us their motive – you don’t have to send East for doctors to dig for it. The motive is Money!
“On page 124, this is Artie talking about money and his opinion of the power of money. He believed that you cannot hang a million dollars in Cook County, no matter how dastardly the crime! Well, I disagree with him. I think the law is superior to money! ‘He thinks an escape could be managed by spending a few thousand dollars, by bribing the guards at the jail and by someone giving him a gun. He says this without any swagger, as though it were only a matter of careful, detailed planning, which his mind can do.’
“What a feeling of comfort and security the mothers and fathers of this town would have, with their children going back and forth upon the streets of Chicago to school, and these two mad dogs at large!”
And tellingly, Horn shouted, “Why, one of the books Artie Straus left in the Morrison Hotel when they registered to establish a fake identity for their murder was The Influence of Wealth on Imperial Rome!”
Then he read: “Page 118, ‘I asked him if he would go through with his plan again if he felt certain he would not be discovered. He replied, “I believe I would if I could get the money”!’
“And Wilk says money had nothing to do with it! Not the thrill, not the excitement.”
Artie had three thousand dollars in the bank. Was it gain from other crimes, robberies, holdups?
After Judd was to leave for Europe, Artie had “thought of other ways of continuing his career of crime”. One idea was to rent a room in a bad neighbourhood and hang around pool-rooms and meet criminals. Another was of becoming a clever financial criminal, putting through gigantic stock swindles, like Koretz. “Money, money, money!” Horn shouted.
“Mentally sick? On page 131. ‘The patient’s intellectual functions are intact; he is correctly oriented, in excellent contact with his surroundings. He denies any hallucinatory experiences, and there is no evidence of their presence.’
“Finally, Mr. Wilk tells us, the cause is heredity. But on page 139 their own doctors say there is nothing to show any evidence of a hereditary nature. All his evil is of his own making. ‘The condition’,” Horn read, “‘is acquired within the life history of the individual and will die out when he dies.’”
As he dropped his arms, that death seemed to stand before us.
Horn took a glass of water. He turned, then, to Judd.
“No emotions, they say. He drove them all out when he was seven or eight years of age, at the same time that God passed out of his heart. Well, let’s see what his companion Artie says about it. ‘I had quite a time quieting down my associate.’ This is during the murder, if Your Honour please. It follows right after ‘he was hit over the head with the chisel’.
“On page 108: ‘My associate said, “This is terrible, this is terrible”. It took five minutes to cool him down.’ Emotion or no emotion? ‘I told him it was all right and talked and laughed to calm him.’”
And what of Artie’s lack of emotion? In reciting the crime to the doctors, “‘When he told of returning the car to the agency at four-thirty, he choked up and wiped his nose with his fingers.’ Yes, he cried, over the failure of it all.
“No emotion in superman Straus? No emotion in superman Steiner? No, when they came into court they killed all emotion on advice of counsel! The desire to save their own worthless hides is the only thing that enters their thoughts. No emotion, and yet, on page 108, Judd tells the doctor that he is rather fond of small children, he could not have struck the blow because he always wants to take a crying child in his arms and comfort it!
“The report says, ‘While in jail the patient has clearly been under considerable emotional tension and is rather irritable at times. The newspaper report that he is a cold-blooded scientist with no emotions and entirely unconcerned is completely wrong’! They admit it themselves! All intellect and no emotion, says Jonathan Wilk, and therefore not responsible. The report says, ‘The patient ordinarily is able to make a calm, self-possessed appearance and before reporters and visitors seems perfectly self-possessed and unconcerned. On the other hand, when he does not feel the need for doing this, and when he is talking frankly with people and no longer posing, he shows a good deal of irritability and nervous tension.’”
Horn grinned at them, as though he had snatched away the mask.